All 3 Uses of
divine
in
The Winter's Tale
- For has not the divine Apollo said,
Scene 5.1 *divine = wonderful (god-like)
- The violent carriage of it Will clear or end the business: when the oracle,— Thus by Apollo's great divine seal'd up,— Shall the contents discover, something rare Even then will rush to knowledge.†
Scene 3.1
- But thus,—if powers divine Behold our human actions,—as they do,— I doubt not, then, but innocence shall make False accusation blush, and tyranny Tremble at patience.†
Scene 3.2
Definitions:
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(1)
(divine as in: to forgive is divine) wonderful; or god-like or coming from God
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(2)
(divine as in: divined from tea leaves) to predict or discover something supernaturally (as if by magic)
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(3)
(divine as in: divined through intuition) to discover or guess something -- usually through intuition or reflection
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(4)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) In the time of Shakespeare, divine was sometimes used as a noun to reference a priest or a person of the church. (To remember that sense, think of the clergyman as having come from God).
Divinity typically refers to a god or to a school of religion, but on rare occasions, it refers to the name of a kind of soft white candy. To remember that sense, you might think of it as tasting divine/wonderful.